The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is tightening its grip on domestic travcel. I don't mean the random, unpredictable security checks at bus, subway and train stations which already exist. I mean a coordinated and systematic police control of internal travel within America. Groundwork is being laid.

Application to Make U.S. Into an Airport Screening Zone The application was tucked away on page 71431 of Volume 77, Number 231 of the Federal Register (November 30). It was surrounded by soporific references to forwarding "the new Information Collection Request (ICR) abstracted below to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA)."

The application for funding from the TSA constitutes a preliminary step toward systematically expanding TSA's authority from airports to highways and almost every other means of public travel. The expansion would erase one of the last remaining differences between the US and a total police state; namely, the ability to travel internally without being under police surveillance. The total police state you experience at airports wants to spill into roads and bus stops, to subways and trains. Or, rather, the TSA wants to solidify and spread the fledgling and erratic presence it already has. The official request reads, "TSA's Highway BASE program [Baseline Assessment for Security Enhancement] seeks to establish the current state of security gaps and implemented countermeasures throughout the highway mode of transportation by posing questions to major transportation asset owners and operators." An example would be an owner and the employees of a long-haul truck company. The application continues, "Data and results collected through the Highway BASE program will inform TSA's policy and program initiatives and allow TSA to provide focused resources and tools to enhance the overall security posture within the surface transportation community."

Meanwhile, the Government Security News Service provides additional details on TSA's plans. TSA wants funding to conduct "security-related assessments" on about 750 "transportation assets" including "140 public transportation agencies." An example would be bus depots or train stations.

Security Magazine (May 30th) offered a sense of how sweeping the definition of "assets" might be, including "trucking, school bus, and motor coach industries, privately-owned highway assets that may include bridges and tunnels, and other related systems and assets owned and operated by state departments of education and transportation."

At this point, the goal is merely "an assessment." But when did a government agency ever conclude that it didn't need funding, expansion and more power? This is especially true of the militarized TSA that treats the public as "hostiles."

The fact that the agency lamented the lack of a "single database" on public transportation is not reassuring. (Federal Register, Vol.77, No.104, pg. 31867, May 30.) The entire push seems aimed at not merely expanding but also centralizing information, efforts and authority, with BASE itself being a consolidation of several other TSA programs.

Travel Authorities Will Comply

Private companies and public travel authorities will co-operate with this "voluntary" program of assessment and with whatever policies result. They will co-operate for two reasons: the stick and the carrot.

The stick: The BASE program is voluntary in the same sense that compliance with TSA demands at airport screening are voluntary - which is to say, not at all. A company that refuses to comply is likely to receive the same harassment and extra scrutiny as passengers who refuse to be screened.

The carrot: the May 30th Federal Register report listed one use to which data from the TSA assessments would be put. It would "inform...the most effective application of available resources, including funds distributed under the Transit Security Grant Program." In short, government money will flow to the compliant. The case of Amtrak is instructive.

On March 3rd, 2011, Trains: The Magazine of Railroading ran the headline: "TRAINS Exclusive: Amtrak police chief bars Transportation Security Administration from some security operations." The article went on to describe how TSA personnel "took over" an Amtrak station on their own authority and "thoroughly searched every person who entered." When Amtrak Police Chief John O'Connor found out, he was reportedly "livid" and insisted on restricting the TSA's authority before he would consider "allowing them back on Amtrak property."

On October 9th, 2012, Homeland Security Today - the official magazine of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) - announced that DHS had forged a partnership Amtrak by which "over 8,000 frontline transportation employees and Amtrak Police Department officers" will be trained.

How did Amtrak go from threatening to evict the TSA (an agency within DHS) to joining enthusiastically in the harassment of passengers? What happened in a year-and-a-half? Money happened. In 2011, Amtrak received $1.5 billion in federal funds and broke records with 30 million passengers; it still lost money. Amtrak's losses were so huge and persistent that one of Mitt Romney's campaign promises was to privatize the behemoth. By partnering with national security in October, however, Amtrak guaranteed both funding and survival no matter who won the election.

No wonder so many transit authorities are scrambling to be "golden." The Gold Award is the highest score a transportation provider can receive from the TSA. It is achieved by obtaining high ratings in 17 categories in Security and Emergency Preparedness. Who do you think will be first in line for federal hand-outs? Compliance with the TSA will be high.

The Amtrak dynamic also points to how the TSA will solve a major problem in monitoring internal travel; namely, it doesn't have enough personnel to cover the vast stretches and variety of internal transportation. The TSA doesn't need them. All it needs to do is co-opt the existing personnel of railroads and buses, of trucking and subways. If it does so, then the TSA will acquire 100,000s of de facto agents who are trained to report back on any suspicious activity or people.

Airport-style control of travel within America is coming. Some would argue it has been here for decades in the form of speed limits. But what's coming is different in kind. The unmarked police cars hiding in bushes are after your money; the uniformed TSA agents and their "partners" want your freedom, your obedience, and control of your life.

Conclusion

The Constitution will not protect the right to travel. Although many legal scholars consider it to be a Constitutional right akin to freedom of association, the word "travel" or its equivalent does not appear in the document except to guarantee the right of Congress members to travel back and forth from 'work'. The Supreme Court case Sáenz v. Roe (1999) rejected the Constitutional basis of free travel and rooted it instead within judicial precedent. These are weak roots and shallow soil.

Those who fret over their continued ability to travel abroad should glance over their shoulders to glimpse what is happening to travel within America. The two are politically connected, intimately so. Many of the same methods that now restrict foreign travel will be used within America because the same agency will handle both: the TSA in its many manifestations. They might be called BASE agents or VIPRs (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response), like the ones who partnered with law enforcement in 2011 in Tennessee to conduct random "terrorist" checkpoints on highways. They may be the specially trained clerks who sell you a ticket . But TSA agents in whatever guise are coming to the highway, bus stop and train station you frequent.

The expansion would erase one of the last remaining differences between the US and a total police state; namely, the ability to travel internally without being under police surveillance.

[snip]

Many of the same methods that now restrict foreign travel will be used within America because the same agency will handle both: the TSA in its many manifestations. They might be called BASE agents or VIPRs (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response), like the ones who partnered with law enforcement in 2011 in Tennessee to conduct random "terrorist" checkpoints on highways. They may be the specially trained clerks who sell you a ticket . But TSA agents in whatever guise are coming to the highway, bus stop and train station you frequent.

I expect a full blown balls to he walls violent gun grab from the Government any day now. I expect them to use the national guard by order to ransack homes and kick in doors of anybody suspected of owning a firearm for any reason. And expect them to place a reward hotline in advance concerning information towards anybody owning a firearm. And once being targeted by anybody who hates you, you will become the target of the forces to be.

Sue the Government? Ok, stand in line. But you'll have already lost your weapons and rights. See you in court in five years after the fact.

Most Americans will sit idly by and allow this to happen because they will be told that only criminals need guns, and any intervention or protest will be cause for arrest.

This can happen at any time, without any warning. And there isn't a damn thing anybody will do about it accept die trying.

The new Governmental national army defense force is the TSA. Unregulated and unapproachable/stoppable by any legal means, at all. Don't think for one min that the Republicans will stop anything like this from happening, because they know that eventually it will be their turn to wield the scepter of POTUS-Power once again.

The Constitution will not protect the right to travel. Although many legal scholars consider it to be a Constitutional right akin to freedom of association, the word "travel" or its equivalent does not appear in the document except to guarantee the right of Congress members to travel back and forth from 'work'.

Yet the 'right' of illegal aliens to stream across our borders continues.

The Constitution can only protect what Rights the people demand to be protected. How well Freedom of Association is protected depends on who you are.

25
posted on 12/13/2012 5:36:42 AM PST
by Smokin' Joe
(How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)

Seems like the forming of a “National Highway Patrol”, not good. This further begs the question, will I have to go through inspections/customs when going from state to state ? And I do a lot of interstate travel too. And will there be new equivalents of no-fly list applied to highway travel ? Very dangerous !

“Whining and sniveling is a waste of time...We didn’t listen when there was still a possibility of doing something about all of this. That time is long past... Just bend over and spread’em!”

How very true....
2006 was the the glaring red warning flag, if the media could convince the Sheeple that 4.6% unemployment and a roaring economy was “THE WORST ECONOMY SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION!”, anybody paying attention should have known what was coming next.

But many freepers, and others, chose to not get involved. They had families to care for, jobs, an outhouse to paint, yada, yada. They are always waiting for someone else to “DO SOMETHING!” instead of showing up to push back against the leftist thugs.

Now, I really fear it is too late, we are too far down the road to come back. And OUR generation is the most at fault. We could have stopped this, in it’s tracks, but we were afraid of being called “Crazy!”, or Homophobe!”, or “RASSISS!” by our aquaintances and the media to push back.

Remember....
Democracies don’t die with a whimper, but to the thunderous applause of the sheep.

34
posted on 12/13/2012 10:53:59 AM PST
by tcrlaf
(Well, it is what the Sheeple voted for....)

Logistically this cannot happen in mass without some key benchmarks, namely media and internet blackout and travel restrictions so word cannot spread. Once the word got out on what was happening, along with armed resistance many guns would disappear in boating accidents, like mine did.

2006 was the the glaring red warning flag, if the media could convince the Sheeple that 4.6% unemployment and a roaring economy was THE WORST ECONOMY SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION!, anybody paying attention should have known what was coming next.

But many freepers, and others, chose to not get involved. They had families to care for, jobs, an outhouse to paint, yada, yada. They are always waiting for someone else to DO SOMETHING! instead of showing up to push back against the leftist thugs.

Now, I really fear it is too late, we are too far down the road to come back. And OUR generation is the most at fault. We could have stopped this, in its tracks, but we were afraid of being called Crazy!, or Homophobe!, or RASSISS! by our aquaintances and the media to push back.

Remember.... Democracies dont die with a whimper, but to the thunderous applause of the sheep."

Well put...Albeit very sad...The Founders have to be spinning CCW in their graves...N.K. is in hell and still beating his shoe and laughing...

39
posted on 12/13/2012 11:46:29 AM PST
by SuperLuminal
(Where is another agitator for republicanism like Sam Adams when we need him?)

I am not sure that they do. I noticed where they showed up at campaign rallies they were always accompanied by leos. So I do not know if they have guns.

But...so do I. And until they have a clearly defined and regulated police power outside of airports, they are not going to get a lot of respect from me. Why should I pay them any mind on the highway? What LAW gives them authority to be there?

In this case I am just asking. Just like the Amtrak example: the local Amtrak guy was all up in fiefdom arms but was persuaded to sell out his customers once he was persuaded probably with some veiled threat/perk.
So how does that work on a highway?

We can of course roll over and say well they have guns. And I am sure there may come times I will too when the hassle isn’t worth the principle. But while they are feeling their way, we should be as adamant that they do NOT have the authority to expand their roles before its too late for any of us.

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